I have to say that Bong was in as good of shape as I?ve ever seen it. The potholes in the road were filled and the road was graded smooth. And after a dry winter and spring, there was less water than I?ve ever seen there. The ranger that did the grading stopped by and got a round of applause from an appreciative audience. And got to push the button to launch a couple of bigger rockets. He seemed to enjoy it as much as we enjoyed not having to maneuver to stay out of the deep water.

We flew 153 flights, burned 72,980 Newton-seconds of impulse in 159 motors. The average motor was 458 N-S, a decent sized I motor. An L and 4 M?s kind of skewed the numbers to the high side.

Special welcome goes to Becca Young and Austin Dickerson for making their first flights at Bong. Vern Hoag flew an H210R in his 4? PML Patriot for a successful Level 1 certification. Jon Dubrick attempted to fly his 10? tall Nike Ajax on an M1419 for his Level 3, but had some problems with stability. Fortunately the mains deployed about burn out at the top of the 3rd or 4th power loop and every thing seemed to be fine. Except Jon?s ego, but I?m sure we?ll see a successful flight soon.

The MSOE team of Eric and Tony flew Bob Justus? rocket with an M1939 and a boatload of electronics. Named the ?We Behind the Ears Engineers?, this 12? tall, 6? diameter rocket tipped the scales at 70 pounds. Sporting an R-DAS system with 4 accelermeters; 3 for acceleration in each axis and another for rotation, this bird was one of the most heavily instrumented rockets flown at Bong. There was a GPS system attached to the R-DAS and an external payload for visible mass-spring system attached to the drogue. OK, I?m not sure what they mean by that, but directly off the back of the flight card. The GPS is a nice thought, but not needed on this flight. Everything worked as expected and with the light breezes we had, recovered within easy walking distance. Very cool flight that even I could see all the way.

Al Casper flew his ?Allegro Twin? on not one, but two Aerotech J260 Hybrids. Lit off perfectly, flew straight and true to a predicted 2700?. Nice show and a nice demonstration that you can successfully fly hybrids in clusters.

Mike Garber flew his rocket ?Classified? on an I211 and airstarted a pair of G35?s. Mike timer blew the main chute after 35 seconds for a perfect recovery. I?d tell you how high it flew, but then Mike would have to kill me?

Kenneth Herrick showed off his skills by staging an H242 to an H128 in his ?Rev-Rock II?. Staging composites is a skill few have and it is always fun to let your breath out after one works well. Kenneth flew a G-Whiz LC in the booster that started the sustainer 1 second after burnout of the H242. The H128 in the sustainer pushed an Adept Alts25 to about 3500? where the drogue deployed. All parts were recovered and appeared undamaged, ready to fly again.

Rick Nelson had is X-15 ready for the next step, with a J330 this time. Just like NASA, Rick has started out flying his X-15 modestly and added a slightly bigger motor each time. Another successful step towards space for Rick. Can?t wait until next time to see what the next motor will be.

Robert Collins clustered three (3) G38?s in his ?Sponge Bob Rock-It?. If clustering hybrids is special, getting three composites to light at once is even harder. I?ll wager there was something besides Copperheads in the nozzles of this rocket. A nice flight, followed by a nice recovery. Again, very cool to watch and breath again.

And what would a Bong launch be without Mike Dybull and Dave Zupan flying something at least slightly crazy? Mike?s M1315 power PML ?Endeavor III? was probably the highest flight of the day. Predicted to hit 8200? and it sure looked like it made it. Dave would have flown higher if all the J350?s he tried to airstart would have cooperated. The core M1315 flew well, but the planned sets of J350s didn?t cooperate. Dave had one pair set to start 2 seconds after burnout, the next pair 2 seconds after those burned out, and a final pair set to start after 2 more seconds. He would have had a power for almost 20 seconds if all motors would have gone. But the ?Army Dawg? will fly again.